This documentary [view below] is about FGM (female genital mutilation) and if you listen to Alice talk about the myths of FGM in Africa - they sound very familiar to the way we talk about MGM (male genital mutilation) in the United States.
Details from The Cut:
The Cut is a short documentary about Mary (14 years old) and Alice (early 20s) from Kenya. Both are impacted by the traditional rite of passage into womanhood: genital cutting.
Mary and her community are preparing for her ceremonial cutting.
Alice is studying to be a social worker to work against female genital mutilation. As the first in her community to refuse the practice, she has paid a high price for her choice to break with tradition.
Alice tells of the different myths she encounters in the community around her, as to why circumcision is practiced. Mary, on the other hand, has no voice. She just goes through the preparations and rituals in silence.
Director: Linda May Kallestein
Photographer: Justo N. Casal
Editor: Trine Nordmark Børstad
Producer: Phantomfilm
Broadcast on CNN: October 2009Nominated as Best Documentary at WTOs International Film Festival 2009
Shown at various film festivals around the world.
Note: The prepuce organ is homologous and analogous in women ('clitoral hood') and men ('foreskin'). The surgical amputation of this organ through genital cutting ('circumcision') has detrimental consequences for both girls and boys, women and men.
~~~~
It is yet another myth that women who have lived through FGM are unable to experience sexual pleasure or orgasm.
ReplyDeleteMost, in fact, do experience both.
And many women living in the U.S. who were victims of FGM as infants do not even know something was taken from them until they find out through childbirth exams or something similar. (A lot like men who were MGM victims and do not know anything is 'missing' until they talk with intact friends later in life).
The most common form of FGM amputates much less than the most common form of MGM (as inflicted on babies in the United States). The prepuce in women is much smaller than the prepuce in men (as is the glans). Both are equally as wrong and violations of human rights, but both were also started in an attempt to reduce the normal sexuality (desire and pleasure) in men and women.
Men who have lived through MGM have certainly lost a large part of their normal sexual functioning and ability to experience pleasure and orgasm as nature intended them to. And their partners, also, are not privy to sex as it was meant to be. When we drastically change the form of men's bodies, we also alter function.
More on how MGM impacts sexual intercourse (especially as men and their partners grow older) and the many ways it impacts women's experience of sex can be found here:
http://www.drmomma.org/2009/07/how-male-circumcision-impacts-women.html
Especially, "A Change in How Intercourse Works" -
http://www.drmomma.org/2009/10/change-in-how-intercourse-works.html
The book "Sex as nature intended" is another:
http://astore.amazon.com/peacefparent-20/detail/0970044216
While FGM is absolutely horrific and should be banned right along side MGM world wide, it is actually MGM that impacts the form and functioning of sexual intercourse between heterosexual partners more than FGM does.
One (FGM) mutilates the body of girls, while the other (MGM) mutilates the body of boys AND the experience of pleasure/orgasm/sensation for both parties involved while also changing the way sex is "done."
There is a reason we see more anorgasmia (lack of orgasm) among women living in the United States with cut male partners than is found in any other (intact) nation in the world. Male circumcision hurts women too.
Very interesting. I'm just very thankful that my husband and I decided NOT to have our son get a circumcision. I didn't think there was enough evidence to "prove" that doing the procedure would help him avoid infection, nor do we believe in doing something because it's a "religious practice."
ReplyDeletecircumcision exposes the glans and makes an internal organ become external.,it is not a solution against aids because you have to use a condom anyway to protect yourself.it takes away man's most erogenous part .it creates sexual frustrations because it reduces sensitivity. and so much more.......inform yourselves the right way.
ReplyDeleteCan it get more barbaric than this ?
ReplyDeleteCircumcision has hugely affected my sex life. My husband has a hairy shaft due to his circumsizing at age 4. He finds it hard to shave it cz it always cuts him. So sex feels like sandpaper if it's longer than five mins. My previous boyfriend was not circumsized and we had the best sex of my life, but he wasn't my soul partner. I can't bring it up w my husband too much cz I don't want him to feel bad. I think male circumsision is so sad. For all.
ReplyDelete